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PROLOGUE
It all starts with Lily pouring hot cocoa into a travel mug at breakfast. A hot cocoa that she leaves unattended for brief moment to return Mary’s copy of Wuthering Heights. A hot cocoa that she then hands to her favorite, half-asleep lycanthrope at the beginning of their obnoxiously early Arithmancy class. A hot cocoa that Remus notes smells oddly like leather, incense, and rain before taking a sip.
I. LILY
Lily compares Arithmancy notes with Remus. Or tries to, anyway. He’s drumming his fingers on the table and bouncing his leg up and down and nodding along to everything she says while his eyes dart around the room. He gets like this a few days before the full moon. But the full moon is not for another seventeen days.
She studies him for a moment, then says casually, “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but there’s a trend going around of playing shag, marry, kill with you, James, and Sirius, and you’re winning the marriage category by a landslide. Might want to prepare yourself for some proposals.”
It isn’t even a lie. But it doesn’t matter because Remus only nods and mutters his approval.
“Remus!” she exclaims, hitting the table. He jolts up, eyes wide. “What’s got you all weird and fidgety?”
He gnaws at his lower lip, glances around, then leans in. He has far too many creases in his forehead for a sixteen-year-old. “I have to tell you something.”
Lily sighs. “What did you do?”
“Nothing! It’s not—”
“What are you planning to do then?”
His lips quirk upward for a second, then fall. “It’s embarrassing, Lily.” She rolls her eyes. “It’s so embarrassing.”
“Remus, no offense, but your primary mode of existence is embarrassment.”
He groans. “This is different. I like someone. Or… or more than that. I… I think I’m in love.”
Finally. “And that’s embarrassing because…”
“Well for one thing, they definitely don’t feel the same. And even if they did, I couldn’t possibly—it would ruin everything!”
“It’s not me, right?” she teases.
“No!” he cries, blushing furiously. ‘I mean, not that you’re not—”
“Remus, relax, I was kidding.” Although, her answer to the trending question had been Shag Sirius, Marry Remus, Kill James, and if she’s painfully honest with herself it’s probably actually Shag Remus, Marry James, Kill Sirius, and either way her friend would be getting some, but she’s ninety-eight percent certain his answer is Shag Sirius, Marry Sirius, Die of shame.
“I know who it is,” she says gently.
He squints. “I really don’t think you do.”
“Who he is.”
He gulps. “I still don’t think—”
“So it’s not a certain fair-skinned, raven-haired boy? Starts with an ‘s,’ ends with an ‘s’?”
His pale green eyes widen in horror. “Is it that obvious?”
She offers her pitifully clueless friend her warmest smile and says, “You should tell him.”
“What? No! I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?”
God he’s dramatic.
“You really don’t know that he likes you too? He’s been ogling you dreamily since the beginning of fifth year.” It’s a well-known fact that the summer of ’75 was very kind to Remus. To everyone, that is, except Remus.
He furrows his brow, seemingly replaying every interaction he’s had with Sirius over the last year and a half. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I thought you knew,” she shrugs. Or more, desperately hoped he would eventually come to the conclusion on his own. “I mean, he’s no James, but he’s not exactly subtle.”
“But…” Remus wrings his hands. “But what would people think?”
“About the fact that you like boys or your questionable taste in boys?” she grins.
“Both,” he moans, apparently too distraught to come to Sirius’s defense.
“Well if anyone cares about the first thing, I’ll personally hex them into next year,” she says, brandishing her wand in promise.
“As for the second,” she continues, “look you know I’m not his biggest fan, but if he makes you happy, it doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks.” She’s actually been developing a secret level of respect for Sirius after having learned more about his family background. Plus, he clearly worships Remus, while still appreciating him for the endearingly neurotic, self-effacing ball of anxiety that he is.
Thankfully, this seems to at least placate him, though he’s now too busy chewing the end of his quill with evident sexual frustration to focus on Arithmancy.
II. SIRIUS
Sirius finds Remus pacing feverishly in their dormitory, his tie loose, shirt half-untucked, hair a bit tousled. It is entirely too much, and he considers feigning a dramatic swoon to cover up the very real lack of blood reaching his brain.
“Alright Moony?” he asks, his voice pinched.
Remus jumps at the sound of his voice. He fully expects him to shrug it off and deny, deny, deny, but instead, he closes the space between them and grips Sirius’s shoulders. Sirius makes the mistake of looking up and finding himself bound in an intense gaze, burning in the amber rings around his friend’s pupils.
“We’re friends no matter what, right?”
“Ride or die, Moonpie,” he replies instinctively, not caring that Remus is giving off strong ‘I just killed a man’ vibes.
He just nods and resumes pacing. Sirius’s shoulders feel like they’ve broken into a cold sweat at the absence of his touch.
“Remus? What’s wrong?”
Remus stares at his feet. Sirius doesn’t expect him to answer. He definitely doesn’t expect him to sigh and say, “I like someone. And Lily reckons I should tell him.”
“Him?” Sirius squeaks.
He looks up, his big eyes adorably wide. “Is that okay?”
“Of course it is, Moony.” He squeezes his arm and tries not to think about his lean, wiry muscles. “Is that what you’re worried about?”
“I just…” He lets his hair flop in his eyes, and it takes every fraction of Sirius’s already limited self-control not to reach up and brush it away. “I don’t want it to ruin our friendship, Padfoot.”
“It won’t.” He has to be talking about him, right? Unless he knows that Sirius likes him and doesn’t want him to be jealous…
“Promise?” his voice is suddenly very high, and frankly, he just has no right to be this adorable and this hot at the same time.
Sirius gives up and sweeps back Remus’s sandy brown locks. The fact that he lasted for almost thirty seconds is a victory in and of itself. “Promise.”
Remus smiles that gentle smile that’s more with his eyes than his mouth, and Sirius’s stomach flips. “Good, because I can’t stop thinking about him.”
Every single part of Sirius is seized with a tingly fire, from his ankles to the crooks of his elbows to the tips of his ears. “Oh yeah? What’s he like?”
He chews his lip, and Sirius is not sure if he’s being tortured on purpose or if his friend is truly that unaware. “Pale… long dark hair… bit angsty.”
Sirius would prefer ‘porcelain’ and ‘edgy’ but he’ll take it. He will absolutely take it. “He sounds hot.”
A strange expression crosses Remus’s face, passing like a current through his scars. “You think I should tell him then?”
“I do.”
“Okay… Okay.”
Sirius leans closer. God he hates that his friend is now taller than him. And also loves it. And hates that he loves it. Fuck. He feels the heat coming off Remus’s body, inhales his cozy wool and cedar scent, focuses on how soft his lips look…
But suddenly Remus is stepping back? And heading out of the dormitory?
“Where are you going?”
He scratches the back of his neck, looking a bit sheepish. “The Slytherin common room.”
“W-what?” It’s a joke, right? He waits for the wry smile, the eye roll, anything.
But Remus just shoves his hands in his pockets and mumbles, “He’s a Slytherin.”
“Oh.” He racks his brain for pale, dark-haired, angsty Slytherins… Oh no. “Is it—is it my baby brother?”
He chuckles. “No. Merlin, no.”
And Sirius finds himself oddly offended by this because even though Remus being in love with his brother would be a nightmare, Regulus does look like him—well, a less attractive, permanently constipated version of him—so it shouldn’t be that ridiculous that Remus could be attracted to him.
“But… but then… who?”
Remus takes a deep breath, averting Sirius’s eyes. “It’s Snape.”
Sirius chokes out a gasp that morphs into a laugh that fades into a sigh of relief. “Moony. Moonshine. If you’re going to try to prank me like that, at least make it believable.” Though in truth, he’s intensely grateful that it wasn’t more believable. He might’ve imploded.
“It’s not a prank,” he snaps, crossing his arms. “I’m in love with Snape.”
The thing is, Remus is a terrible liar. He’s an expert at keeping secrets, at dodging questions, even at inventing witty lies on the spot. But he is completely incapable of looking someone in the eye and telling them something directly false.
What the actual fuck?
So maybe it’s a love potion. He has no idea who would want Remus to fall in love with Snivellus because the only person chaotic enough to start drama for drama’s sake is, well, him, but best to be sure. “Since when?” he asks carefully.
“Since…” He scrunches his face in thought, and Sirius dares to hope that he’ll realize it all came on suddenly. But then he says, “Since the beginning of this year, I think. Maybe earlier.”
“But… but why?”
The question seems to take Remus off guard. “Well… well he’s been through a lot, you know. And I know he can be a bit of a prat—”
“A bit?”
“But… well… I mean he knows about me, and he’s never told anyone!”
Sirius groans. “Moony, if this is revenge for the Prank—”
“And he’s an extremely talented wizard. The spells he’s created—”
“You find Sectumsempra a turn on?” This is what he gets for hoping Remus would have a thing for bad boys. But Snivellus isn’t a bad boy; he’s just sad and weird and creepy! Sirius could be sad and weird and creepy too if he wanted, and it’d look a hell of a lot sexier on him than Snivellus.
“And… and he’s really quite… striking,” he says, his freckled cheeks turning and adorable shade of pink that makes Sirius sick to his stomach.
This can’t be real. Remus is clearly trying to prove that he’s a better liar than people think, or finally enact his revenge for the Prank, or mock Sirius’s painfully obvious crush on him, or some combination of the three.
Sirius hugs his arms to his chest. “Okay, clearly this is all very amusing to you, but it’s not to me.”
“Amusing? Sirius, I don’t—”
“Look, I don’t know if you’re just too clueless to realize why this is so hurtful, or if you’re doing it on purpose, but please just… just stop. Okay?”
Remus’s lip trembles, and his eyes turn bright green as they well with tears. “I can’t just stop feeling this way. You think I want to be in love with Snape?”
“You’re not in love with Snape!” Sirius shouts. “Stop saying that!”
The taller boy hunches, shoulders curling forward, suddenly looking small and fragile. It makes Sirius’s chest collapse in on itself. “You… you promised this wouldn’t come between us.”
And then Remus is crying, and now Sirius is sobbing because seeing Remus cry breaks his heart in a melted ice cream sort of way, and seeing Remus cry over Snivellus Fucking Snape breaks his heart in a lightning bolt straight to the chest sort of way, and not being able to wrap him in a hug and cover him in kisses breaks his heart in a squeezing, wrenching, twisting sort of way.
“Padfoot? Moony? What’s going on?” James hangs cautiously in the doorway.
“Moony here has decided it would be funny to try to convince me that he’s in love with Snape,” Sirius spits out, ignoring the tears that continue to stream down his cheeks.
“I am in love with Snape!”
“Er…” James looks between the two of them, waiting for a punchline that doesn’t come.
“I am, and I don’t care what any of you think!” Remus cries. “And Lily told me he feels the same way, so I’m going to go tell him!”
He storms out of the room. James stares after him, then turns to Sirius, awaiting an explanation that he doesn’t have. Instead, he starts to shake and sniffle and hyperventilate, which only gets worse when James momentarily suspends his confusion to give him a hug.
III. JAMES
So now James is left to get this all sorted because, for reasons unknown, Sirius is being completely and utterly useless.
He breathes a sigh of relief as he catches a familiar flash of red hair in the common room. And also feels his stomach leap up into his chest and push his heart into his throat, but he shoves that all down for now because he is on a mission.
“Evans, hey, quick question—”
“I thought we agreed you have to wait at least seventy-two hours between—”
“No, sorry, it’s not that.” He’s actually thinking he’ll wait a whole week this time, just to see if she starts to worry that he’s given up for good. “Did you by any chance tell Remus that Sniv—Snape… er… has feelings for him?”
She drops her book. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Because he seems to think that you did, and he just left to go profess his love for him.”
“His love for… for Severus?” Realization washes over her, and she raises her hand to her mouth. “Oh no.”
“What do you know?” he presses.
“He… he told me he liked someone, and I thought he was talking about…” Her eyes flick to Sirius, who has been clinging to James’s side like a lost puppy. “So I encouraged him to go for it.”
“You… he… Padfoot?” James turns to his puffy-eyed, sniffling friend, and all his whining about his debilitating crush on a ‘beautiful nerd who is immune to his charms’ suddenly makes a hell of a lot more sense. Sirius looks down, and he puts a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Right. So. First things first, we have to go stop him. Come on, Padfoot.”
“Why?” Sirius grumbles. “If he’s really in love with Snivellus, he deserves to make a fool of himself.”
James shoots him a look. “He’s not really in love with Snape, you idiot. He’s obviously been cursed.”
“But—”
“Oh,” Lily gasps. “Severus was staring at me all through Potions like he was waiting for something… I… I think maybe he tried to slip me a love potion!”
James is momentarily seized with an all-consuming rage. “That sick bastard!” As desperately as he wants Lily to love him, he would never, never do something like that. Even if it wasn’t a complete and utter violation, he wouldn’t want to be with someone who didn’t actually love him back, and—
“But how did Moony end up with it?” Sirius asks.
“I always bring hot cocoa to Arithmancy, for Remus.”
James raises a brow, choosing to ignore the tug of jealousy and focus on the ridiculousness of that statement. “You bring Moony hot cocoa at 8 AM?”
“It’s his coffee,” Sirius and Lily reply in unison.
“Right… So we should probably—”
“Fuck, let’s go, Prongs!”
Sirius grabs James’s arm, and they take off sprinting towards the dungeons.
They find Remus waiting outside the Slytherin common room, ignoring the suspicious looks. His head snaps towards them as they come barreling down the hall, and his eyes narrow into a glare.
“What are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you,” Sirius proclaims before James can come up with a more tactful response. He links his arm through Remus’s. “Come on, Moony. Let’s go see how old Slughorn is doing.”
Remus shrugs him off. “Leave me alone.”
“No can do, Moonshine.” Sirius flashes Remus a crooked, toothy grin and beams at him like he’s a god amongst men.
This also explains the incessant complaining about Remus’s height and how he’s the perfect combination of boyish and manly, and the way his arms look with his sleeves rolled up, and Merlin, James is an idiot.
But does Remus like Sirius back? He never talks about that kind of thing. And right now, he’s looking at Sirius with unadulterated disdain… But then, that’s how Lily looks at James most of the time…
“Little help here, Prongs?”
James snaps out of it and grabs Remus’s other arm. The taller boy struggles against them. “What are you doing? Let me go!”
As they drag him down the corridor—thank Merlin Slughorn’s office is nearby—Snape comes slinking towards them.
“Snape! I have to talk to—” Remus calls, cut off by Sirius hand over his mouth.
James takes advantage of Snivellus’s momentary confusion to hit him with the first hex he can think of. He falls back, his nose stretching into an elephant trunk. It’s an improvement, in James’s opinion.
“How could you?” Remus wails, fighting to look over his shoulder as they continue to drag him. “What part of ‘I love him’ don’t you understand?”
“Is it so much it physically hurts? Like right here?” Sirius asks with an uncharacteristic tenderness, pressing his hand to Remus’s chest. Remus nods slowly, calming a bit. “And like… like you feel like you can’t breathe whenever you’re around him? And your whole body tingles, and everything else goes blurry?”
Oh Padfoot, you’ve got it bad.
Remus gapes at him. “Are you… are you in love with Snape too?”
Sirius sighs and lightly ruffles Remus’s hair, his grey eyes glassy. James catches his glance, and they have one of their telepathic conversations.
It’ll be okay, Padfoot.
You’re just glad to have someone to hopelessly pine with, Prongs.
Maybe we should just date each other?
Please. I’m miles out of your league.
IV. REMUS
Remus wakes up with a splitting headache and a giant ball of black fur at his feet. He groans and sits up, pressing a fist to the bridge of his nose.
Padfoot’s ears perk up, and the next thing he knows, Sirius is sitting cross-legged on the foot of his bed. “Moony! How are you feeling?”
“What happened?”
“You don’t remember?” Sirius asks carefully.
“I… I’m not sure…” He’s assuming he’s been sick because he’s remembering choppy flashes of one truly bizarre fever dream that will be promptly added to his list of mortal secrets.
“Well… Snivellus tried to give Lily Amortentia…”
“What”
“By spiking the hot cocoa she brought to Arithmancy.”
“Oh… Oh.” He hears himself proclaiming his love for Snape, followed by a barrage of scenarios he’d imagined—him pinning Snape to a wall and snogging him senseless, running his hands through his greasy hair, falling asleep with him pressed up against him… Remus gags and throws a hand to his mouth.
“Moony?”
“I’m gonna be sick,” he says into his hand before jumping up and running to the bathroom.
He makes it to the toilet just in time, and Sirius is right there behind him, rubbing his back, catching him as he crumples down on the cold tile floor.
“So… is it fair to say you’re no longer fantasizing about his pale skin and long dark hair?” Sirius says after a moment.
And then he meets those metallic grey eyes and is bombarded with a new series of images. Sirius leaning close, smelling like leather, incense, and rain. Sirius gently brushing the hair from his eyes. Sirius gaping and glowering, I don’t know if you’re just too clueless to realize why this is so hurtful, or if you’re doing it on purpose…
Sirius sobbing. Raw, ugly, gutted sobs, like someone had carved open his chest cavity and hollowed it out. No, not someone, him, Remus Lupin, the lanky, awkward werewolf who just stood there and let Sirius fall apart instead of cradling him in his arms and planting kisses in his hair and dabbing his tears with his sleeve. And he realizes he’d rather have declared his undying love for Severus Snape in front of the entire school than hurt Sirius like that.
“Hey Moony?”
“Yeah?”
Sirius looks down, his thick, dark lashes on display. “When I asked you how long you’d been in love with Snape, you said since the beginning of the year…”
Remus sighs. “Padfoot, I promise I am not in love with Snape.”
“No, I know, I just…” He looks up, lips parted helplessly. And Merlin’s bloody balls, he has no right to be this beautiful.
So it’s not a certain fair-skinned, raven-haired boy? Starts with an ‘s’ ends with an ‘s’?
He swallows, the taste of bile lingering in his mouth. “I think…”
He’s been ogling you dreamily since the beginning of fifth year.
“I think maybe my potion-induced feelings for him got a bit blurred with my very real feelings for someone else.”
Something flickers through Sirius’s eyes, but he doesn’t dare smile. “So… you do like someone?”
Remus nods.
“A boy someone?” He nods.
“Also with pale skin and long dark hair?” He nods.
“And it’s not my darling baby brother?”
Remus breaks down laughing, the tremors of his own laughter inciting a few nervous chuckles from Sirius. “Are you done?”
“Hold on, I’m just making sure I’ve ruled out every other possible person in the castle. It’s not that Ravenclaw in seventh year… what’s his name—”
He runs a finger along Sirius’s cheekbone, and he quiets, a shiver passing between them. He rests a hand on his cheek, tracing his sharp jawline with his thumb and leans in, then hesitates.
“I should brush my teeth,” he announces, standing.
Sirius lets out a mix between a groan and a growl. “Remus Lupin, you insufferable tease!”
“I don’t want to taste like vomit!” he protests, reaching for his toothbrush.
“I don’t mind…”
Remus snorts. “The last time you ate a vomit-flavored bean, you acted like you were dying for the next three hours.”
His hands shake as he brushes his teeth. This is really happening. He is going to kiss Sirius Black. Objectively the hottest boy at Hogwarts and subjectively the most infuriating mess of contradictions on the planet. Sirius is black licorice and bubblegum, punk rock and opera, a boiling temper and a big, melty heart.
Said infuriating mess of contradictions rests his head on Remus’s shoulders, making puppy eyes in the mirror. He rolls his eyes, but Sirius only nuzzles closer. The shorter boy’s hands tentatively wrap around his waist, and he lets out a small gasp.
“Is this okay?” Sirius murmurs. He nods dumbly. “And this?” Lips brush his neck.
Remus accidentally swallows the toothpaste and proceeds to cough into the sink in what is definitely not one of his more attractive moments. Sirius just laughs and pats his back.
They finally face each other. Sirius wipes toothpaste from the corner of Remus’s mouth, then lets his thumb glide along his lower lip. He gulps, tucks Sirius’s silky, black waves behind his ears, and leans in to kiss him.
It’s surprisingly tender as their lips move together slowly, searching, exploring. He feels Sirius smile and smiles back. They press their foreheads together, relieved laughter bubbling between them.
“Padfoot?” he whispers.
“Yes Moony?”
He smirks. “A certain redhead told me that you’ve been ogling me since the beginning of fifth year?”
“Oh did she now?” he huffs. “Said redhead is lucky that Prongs is so in love with her.”
“Have you though?”
“I—it’s not my fault you decided to leave for the summer all scrawny and round-faced and come back tall and chiseled and hot!” he exclaims, adorably flustered.
Remus laughs, cheeks burning. “You have no right to complain about that.”
Sirius grins wickedly and tosses his hair. “Yes, but I’ve always been gorgeous, Moony. You had time to get used to it.”
“And yet I never really have,” he says, seizing Sirius’s waist and pulling him close.
This time, their lips crash together with a hunger.